{"id":2209,"date":"2020-07-06T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/?p=2209"},"modified":"2025-12-01T19:13:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T19:13:14","slug":"interview-margaretta-darcy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Margaretta D&#8217;Arcy (Women&#8217;s Sc\u00e9al Radio\/Radio Pirate Woman)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_5813\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-2209-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/20200701_Margaretta_Darcy_edit.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/20200701_Margaretta_Darcy_edit.mp3\">http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/20200701_Margaretta_Darcy_edit.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/20200701_Margaretta_Darcy_edit.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/?powerpress_pinw=2209-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/20200701_Margaretta_Darcy_edit.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"20200701_Margaretta_Darcy_edit.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"678\" src=\"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Radio-Pirate-Woman-1991-1024x678.jpg\" alt=\"Interview with Margaretta D&#039;Arcy (Women&#039;s Sc\u00e9al Radio\/Radio Pirate Woman)\" class=\"wp-image-2213\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Radio-Pirate-Woman-1991-1024x678.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Radio-Pirate-Woman-1991-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Radio-Pirate-Woman-1991-768x508.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Radio-Pirate-Woman-1991-1536x1017.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Radio-Pirate-Woman-1991-2048x1355.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Margaretta D\u2019Arcy on Radio Pirate Woman from her home in 1991 (photo courtesy Stan Shields, City Tribune).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>No account of Galway pirate radio would be complete without the unique station set up by the writer and activist Margaretta D&#8217;Arcy (RIP) from her home in the city centre. Women&#8217;s Sc\u00e9al Radio broadcast irregularly from 1987 and was renamed Radio Pirate Woman in 1989 to reflect the new legislation which clamped down more severely on the pirates than previously. The station was set up to oppose censorship, including Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act (which banned interviews with members of Sinn F\u00e9in) and the ban on information about abortion. Women of various political persuasions would gather around the table and speak openly about these and other issues of relevance to them. The technical set-up was very basic, with little more than a microphone, tape recorder and and a cheap low-powered FM transmitter with a radius of 3km. Radio Pirate Woman also broadcast cassettes from WINGS (Women&#8217;s International News Gathering Service) and featured the voices of women from radio stations around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Margaretta-event-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Interview with Margaretta D&#039;Arcy (Women&#039;s Sc\u00e9al Radio\/Radio Pirate Woman)\" class=\"wp-image-2212\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Margaretta-event-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Margaretta-event-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Margaretta-event-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Margaretta-event-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Margaretta-event-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Margaretta D&#8217;Arcy at NUI Galway (now University of Galway) in 2017, when her papers were donated to the university (photo courtesy of Aengus McMahon)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>In this interview, Margaretta D&#8217;Arcy, who had just celebrated her 86th birthday, explains her motivation for setting up the station, reading extracts from her book <em>Galway&#8217;s Pirate Women: A Global Trawl<\/em> (1996). She explains how women of very different ideological outlooks spoke on air from around her kitchen table, including religious activist Deirdre Manifold who had earlier been involved with <a href=\"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/aircheck-independent-radio-galway\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Independent Radio Galway<\/a>. Margaretta also explains why she didn&#8217;t seek a licence in 1989 and discusses the various successes of Radio Pirate Woman. She doesn&#8217;t recall the last time the station was on the air, but it hasn&#8217;t been heard for a number of years and we estimate the last date to be c. 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Sabina-Mary-C-Margaretta-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Interview with Margaretta D&#039;Arcy (Women&#039;s Sc\u00e9al Radio\/Radio Pirate Woman)\" class=\"wp-image-2214\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Sabina-Mary-C-Margaretta-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Sabina-Mary-C-Margaretta-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Sabina-Mary-C-Margaretta-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Sabina-Mary-C-Margaretta-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Sabina-Mary-C-Margaretta-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">L-R: Sabina Higgins, Mary Coughlan and Margaretta D&#8217;Arcy at the occasion of the donation to NUI Galway (photo courtesy of Aengus McMahon). <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>In 2017, Margaretta donated her papers and those of her late husband, playwright John Arden to the University of Galway. The donation included hundreds of cassette recordings of Women&#8217;s Sc\u00e9al Radio and Radio Pirate Woman. We are very grateful to Margaretta for sharing her memories of her unique pirate radio station with us. She died in 2025 at the age of 91. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No account of Galway pirate radio would be complete without the unique station set up by the writer and activist Margaretta D&#8217;Arcy (RIP) from her home in the city centre. Women&#8217;s Sc\u00e9al Radio broadcast irregularly from 1987 and was renamed Radio Pirate Woman in 1989 to reflect the new legislation which clamped down more severely &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Interview with Margaretta D&#8217;Arcy (Women&#8217;s Sc\u00e9al Radio\/Radio Pirate Woman)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[322,320,331,134],"class_list":["post-2209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","tag-galway","tag-margaretta-darcy","tag-political-pirate","tag-radio-pirate-woman"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Interview with Margaretta D&#039;Arcy (Women&#039;s Sc\u00e9al Radio\/Radio Pirate Woman) - Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Interview with Margaretta D&#039;Arcy (Women&#039;s Sc\u00e9al Radio\/Radio Pirate Woman) - Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"No account of Galway pirate radio would be complete without the unique station set up by the writer and activist Margaretta D&#8217;Arcy (RIP) from her home in the city centre. Women&#8217;s Sc\u00e9al Radio broadcast irregularly from 1987 and was renamed Radio Pirate Woman in 1989 to reflect the new legislation which clamped down more severely &hellip; Continue reading &quot;Interview with Margaretta D&#8217;Arcy (Women&#8217;s Sc\u00e9al Radio\/Radio Pirate Woman)&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-07-06T06:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-01T19:13:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Radio-Pirate-Woman-1991-1024x678.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Walsh\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Walsh\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/\",\"name\":\"Interview with Margaretta D'Arcy (Women's Sc\u00e9al Radio\/Radio Pirate Woman) - Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Radio-Pirate-Woman-1991-1024x678.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-07-06T06:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-01T19:13:14+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/#\/schema\/person\/a6eb579c7ad730e14f91e6455b207f00\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Radio-Pirate-Woman-1991-1024x678.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Radio-Pirate-Woman-1991-1024x678.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Interview with Margaretta D&#8217;Arcy (Women&#8217;s Sc\u00e9al Radio\/Radio Pirate Woman)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/\",\"name\":\"Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive\",\"description\":\"Open Free Radio Archive\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/#\/schema\/person\/a6eb579c7ad730e14f91e6455b207f00\",\"name\":\"John Walsh\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/80a5b6baea2fd739c3be046233f2ad61?s=96&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/80a5b6baea2fd739c3be046233f2ad61?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Walsh\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/author\/john\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Interview with Margaretta D'Arcy (Women's Sc\u00e9al Radio\/Radio Pirate Woman) - Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/pirate.ie\/archive\/interview-margaretta-darcy\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Interview with Margaretta D'Arcy (Women's Sc\u00e9al Radio\/Radio Pirate Woman) - Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive","og_description":"No account of Galway pirate radio would be complete without the unique station set up by the writer and activist Margaretta D&#8217;Arcy (RIP) from her home in the city centre. 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